CHICAGO — Josh Tomlin, the Cleveland Indians’ starting pitcher on Friday night, looked into the stands at Wrigley Field before the biggest game of his life and spotted his mother and father.

It was a reassuring sight, one that he kept going back to during the course of the game. Elena and Jerry Tomlin were sitting in the section reserved for people in wheelchairs, a place they would not have been just three months ago.

In August, Jerry Tomlin suffered an arteriovenous malformation, a knotting of blood vessels that cut off circulation to his back and left him partially paralyzed. He may not walk again, but he has completed one phase of his rehabilitation and was able to make the arduous journey from his home in Texas to come see his son perform in the first World Series game at Wrigley in 71 years.

Pitching in front of his father for the first time since the episode, Josh Tomlin performed magnificently. He threw four and two-thirds scoreless innings in front of a loud and hostile crowd and allowed only two hits as the Indians beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0, to take a two-games-to-one lead in the Series.

“It was probably one of the more emotional starts I’ve ever had in my entire life, career, any situation baseball-related, ever,” Tomlin said afterward.

“I’m fortunate enough for him to even be here,” he added, in reference to his father. “So to have him get to experience a World Series game and obviously, my first World Series start, it meant everything.”

This was no ordinary game. There were 41,703 fans at Wrigley, including a few people who had indeed waited all those 71 years for the World Series to return. For hours before the game, there was a boisterous energy inside and outside the ballpark.

But Tomlin was never overwhelmed. And as the game progressed, if he felt he was getting too excited, he looked to the spot in the stands where his father was sitting and tried to gather himself to ease the tension.

“I could kind of go to him throughout the course of the game,” Tomlin said. “If the game was speeding up to me, just to find that sense of calm there. What he’s gone through, I mean, that’s nothing to what we’re going through right now. So to be able to find him and see him in the stands, it kind of calmed me down.”

Tomlin has never made excuses, but concern over his father’s condition could help explain a slump he suffered toward the end of the regular season. He went 0-5 with an 11.48 E.R.A. in August and then pitched in mop-up duty out of the bullpen on Sept. 5.

At that point, he went back into the starting rotation and went 2-1 with a 1.75 E.R.A. in his final four starts leading to the postseason.

And in October, Tomlin has been formidable. He has taken on some of the best lineups in baseball this past month — the Boston Red Sox, the Toronto Blue Jays and now the Cubs — and the Indians have won every game he has started.

Because he did not complete five innings Friday, he was not awarded the win. That went to Andrew Miller, who replaced Tomlin with two outs in the fifth and a runner on second.

Miller got the pinch-hitter Miguel Montero to line out to right to end the inning and preserve Tomlin’s scoreless pitching line. Miller then struck out the side in the sixth and was awarded the victory when the Indians then scored the only run of the game in the top of the seventh. But afterward, Miller wanted to talk about Tomlin and how well he had done on such an emotionally challenging night.

“I can’t imagine putting myself in his shoes,” Miller said. “We are incredibly happy for him that he stepped up on this stage. We’re not surprised in his ability as a pitcher, but he has had a lot going on behind the scenes. For him to have this storybook outing is incredible. And we might need him to go again.”